Thursday 6 April 2017

The Death of Traditional Console Gaming

Alberto Statti Blogger Many of us will have very fond childhood memories of racing around a friends house after school to go sit and play video games with them for hours on end; indeed for some of us this was the only chance to play video games at all. Games used to focus heavily on co-op couch gaming, with some form of co-op campaign or local versus mode being included in almost every game, simply being the case of pick up a controller and play.

Single player games used to be hard, with intricate level designs and minimal hand-holding which may seem frustrating now but back then it was all part of the charm and the challenge of the game and the satisfaction of completing a level or breaking a high score was so good.

This all changed when online play on consoles became so prominent and easy to do. Online play was a feature of the Playstation 2 and original Xbox however only select games featured it and many people simply did not use it. Then the Playstation 3 and Xbox-360 were released. These 2 consoles featured easy access to online gaming, with most games released on these consoles featuring some form of online mode via the free to use Playstation Network or via the subscription based Xbox Live.

Online play became the dominant feature of many games with huge hitters such as the Call of Duty franchise dominating sales and online play. This seemed to mark the beginning of the demise of the 'traditional' style of single player/co-op console gaming; why go around a friends house to play when you can sit and talk to them while playing at home, whilst also progressing and leveling up your character.

This is a trend that seems to be continuing, with the continuation of online focused games on consoles as well as the rise of online PC gaming, with gamers having a massive appetite for online competitive games leading to the rise of ESports. It is sad that many games seem to completely leave out co-op modes and now when you do go to a friends house to play games you don't work together to beat the campaign, you play together online to play in a competitive environment and compete against other people and so it can be said that traditional console gaming is dead.